Influence of joint geometry and load regimes on sandwich tee joint behaviour

Fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) sandwich construction incorporating PVC foam cores is becoming an increasingly used structural topology in the case of ships, boats and offshore structures. A critical part in such structures is the connection between two orthogonal plate assemblies such as bulkheads and shell plating. This is usually in the form of a laminated tee joint. The purpose of this paper is to characterise the behaviour of such connections in terms of key stress components in the various constituent elements of the tee. This is done in context of various joint geometries and loading regimes. It has been shown that the collated results can be presented in the form of regression equations which are functions of geometry and which can then be used for design synthesis purposes.